from The Singers
for Gary Numan
100. Beating organs dropped; left in water. Blood. Teeth.
Placed back in. Back out. Dropped. Down.
Down the organs go. The ants go marching. One by one.
By the river’s edge, outside the forest where
the afterbirth is left. Where bone is often broken and water mysterious.
The keyboard rings. Sound the music again. Synthesizing. Siren.
Staccato. A
beat. A good rhythm section, now, in the chest.
Before
the spitting of blood and
whiteness gone from eyes. The drum.
Bass line of basic breath. You’ve breathed.
Down. My breath
in the ghost’s face.. Chorus wavering. Manipulated.
Outside of ALL OF THIS. DON’T YOU GET IT?
My guts are a-twist. The
music. The fucking Music.
THIS for IT. TIT
for TAT.
Got your music, then. The
beat. It’s all about. and amplified.
Sensual record. Certified and lost
forever. Replaced by fear
for thrill of the chase.
Each for Each and the doors for wandering.
Opens. Shuts.
Shuts in the face.
Against horizons. Scene.
Lines. Differences and facades.
Mountains against.
Tackled by the
tabernacle. An army. A choir.
A Tubeway
Army.
“Where have they been?”
“Whose birthday is it?”
Get the blow-ticklers.
It’s
104. Isolation. This joy
division. This separation. From
Land and Sea.
From tree to tree. The manic maniac is on
the make. Maniac is making
the mark. The make. Sound
in the trees. Your makers make, the maniac
makes in media, in air and
space, in schools, and schools of birds and fish.
Fishing through the lake with silk threads of
this you’ll get only halfway.
Drunk.
Dunk the salamander you found and blame it on a
poet
when the dead come back up.
Come back from it. The way the blame can come
from anywhere.
Canopies to cover, in
cover.
To cover another’s song.
Sound from out there. Something saying: I guess
I’ve seen the sparks flowing,
like no one else has ever
seen them flowing.
Not lost to the ghost in the grocery store
buying apples from the trees
that threw down unripened ones upon the ones now picking. Basketing
the bunches in a T-shirt.
No punishment here. Not now. No, tourism, at the
moment, is appealing.
Gathering leaves. Sadness in
trees. Water cold everywhere. No
No reason for their weather.
Rain. inRain.
Weather. And don’t speak of
They tell me. The weather
there.
No. No reason.
Now.
A thousand feet in a
second. Slow down. Slow down.
Other
wise
there’s sometimes
no coming back to the
ground. Ash in air. Bits
of junk in orbit. No
gathering.
for David Porter & Antigone Michaelides
116. The Green Knight can have my neck, without Gawain’s green
girdle. I’ll let my stomach
out too, and laugh. I’ll bellow out loud, so
loud, in fact, they’ll hear
me all the way back to 400 AD. Excuse me.
I’ll pass over each prairie and dale, down to
the stream and fill it
with the blood of my friends
and enemies. Nothing new,
here, you see. Old stories ever and never collapsing.
Like Giants in the broadcast across the land
making
earthquakes, and tooth aches, and
false dementia to hospital the elderly.
I’ll give the Green Knight my neck some night I
come across an
odd hill down by the creek
in a glen. I’ll give my neck and let
my blood spurt out across
the land to sing the song of a cricket
now found. Once found, then
loss. Great loss. A giant land of crickets
turning things over, turned
over on their backs and burnt by
countries and borders, and
magnificent forests found to be too much.
I’ll turn my head to not watch the ax. I’ll be
relaxed and breathe, and think,
“This is not horror nor anything to do with honor but a way to go
and begin to speak.” And
then will end my think. Blood gone brown
on someone else’s hands
and in the ground, over the mound by the glen,
in the dale, near the
smooth running creek. So many trees. Leaves
to walk on. Not often
stalking. Swinging. Winging. Ringing in a laugh.
I’ll laugh and bat an eye. A
bat. Hit .400 for the first time in years, and
bring down great things; evil
things; and figure myself in the lot.
Power-balanced in the
dark of the woods. A mentioned nightmare.
Cicada. Suggestion.
Movement 118, Stuck in the ‘Pen
for The
118. “Believe in me as I believe in you.” It’s
simple.
Smash a pumpkin on my front lawn and call in a
haunting. It’s All Saints Eve.
It’s Halloween. It’s
candy teeth and monkeying, and wolves all let out.
Windows burn in jack-o-lantern
lighting. Children embrace the fall of Heaven.
The star Lucifer diffused,
let loose, let fall from the edge over, to here.
What some call purgatory, but not all. There’s baseball, after all. And ghosts
to keep things
interesting. Biting off your ear when you don’t listen.
SO LISTEN!
Jesus, this isn’t so hard. Card tricks, magic
fix, the fix in the brain. A grain
of sand for a horse! My
horse for a kingdom! I don’t have either, and
neither does this. Nor no one
we know. In here, there’s the sound now
of cars gone by. Baseball
on the radio, and the name of Jeff Carter
ringing against the walls from
John Miller.
You should be in
The black bugs all abound and on the walls. Nodes of this and none of that.
Corners pushing in all
around. Nothing like the open pushing skyline.
Homeless reckoning they know the ghosts
far better than others.
Ghosting about the gutters and doorways and Camelots
of underpasses, passing by
on crutches and stumps, and wings of breath and air.
Sounds familiar. Saved.
To get a save in the ninth inning, you have to be in
a close game, all ready.
We’re all in position, all ready, to get a save.
Okay, all set.
Apollo at home with the big bat, and Her on first with the lead-off.
Luckily today we have The Breakfast of
Champions on the mound.
We all need a good closer now and then.
Who wants to buy a car?
Movement 120, Gail Swings and Unwanted Party
120. Lonely Gail collects along her way, pieces
for the song.
Piano braces. Metal faces. Braces
on the tongue. Song
for the radio, unable to
not begin. Song about love,
about god, heartache, and
other pop stars—inevitable.
Gail winds through the streets turning crickets
on their backs,
and beetles too, tickling
their bellies, making her way
for the hills and trees.
Only to come back in a harsh wind
over
homeless’ hope of a cigarette or
beer from the young
gathered around heat, in
darkness and cold, for nothing.
Gail kisses the fishes and mispronounces this
company.
The three in the corner with eyes like a pyre
and so thin.
Going in and out like
bad reception. Waving. The ocean.
The slight film of vision,
and the sound too. Antennas
popping out of my brain calling
these things over
whether I want them or not. Gail often now with guests.
Get out, get out! I say.
They wave.
We’ll leave those behind, for now,
with the dice, the eyes, and
the ice.
However, that contradicts our move to
God bless. God bless. Adieu.